I just bought 2 blue acaras and I just realized neither of them have the yellow strips on their top fins like some blue acaras I've seen. Do some have yellow and some have white stripes?

Could be that they are still too young and not at full maturity. I have a pair of Blue Acaras in my cichlid tank, one is visibly a darker shade than the other and hasnt yet got the yellow tips to the fins like my other one has, their only just starting to show whereas the other one which is only a tad larger is defintly in full colour . How big would you say your fish are as my darker Acara is about 2 and half to 3 inches at present.

After some further reading it seems as though there are 2 different blue acaras from different regions. One type have the orange/yellow stripe and the others have the white stripe. I guess I have the white striped kind. To be honest I didn't even notice in the store that they had a white stripe and not a orange one. Then when I came home and was looking at pics of others blue acaras I realized hey wait a minute I thought all blue acaras had orange/yellow stripe on their dorsal fin but whats going on with mine.

I think I prefer the ones with the orange stripe but these guys look nice too.

got a link ?

You may have confused Green Terrors [ Aeqidens Rivulatus or a Gold Saum , 2 dif fish both often called Green Terrors ]with Blue Acaras , Elisebeth . Blues usually have either white are a red stripe I guess depending on which particular species you have [ I mention at least 2 that I know of sold as blue acaras in your other thread on this forum

Joe I'm gonna have to try and find that link...I didn't save it but I'll search for what I searched for yesterday and hopefully I can find it again.

Nope they weren't green terrors..I saw those guys too. Even in the tank where I bought mine some had the orange (could call it red I guess) so I'm pretty certain the info I read about different species having either the orange/red stripe or a white stripe must be true.

I went to another shop and they had a tank full of "blue cichlids" which is what they call them over here and I looked closely at different ones and saw some with orange/red stripes and some with white stripes. To be honest I never really even noticed it until I got my pair home and was looking at pics of Blue acaras on google and realized most have the orange/red stripe.

Let me go look for the link for you

BIG edit: Hmmm well it seems I made a mistake. The link (http://www.mongabay.com/fish/acaras.htm) I was reading was referring to the green terrors like you thought Joe. I think the fish world is confused about the Aequidens species. Seems they keep changing their minds about whats what. Here's a quote: "Blue Acara ("Aequidens" pulcher). The Green Terror was known as A. pulcher for some time. Aequidens aequinoctialis may be a separate species as may be A. azurifer." They said on this site that they put Aequidens in Aequidens pulcher in quotations because "The Blue Acara group is undergoing further revisions, so this is why Aequidens appears in quotation marks."

edit again: Wait a second ...after reading your post again Blue Acaras can have either white or red stripes depending on where they come from? So I was right about the location thing?

This post has been edited by Elisabeth83: Nov 20 2005, 05:20 PM

Well I'm a bit of a Dinosaur in the hobby anyway , it's been a few years *cough* 14 or 15 since I've kept any , never saw any with orange on the fins though , maybe they are coming from a slightly different region these days , could be lighting in the tanks , I'll have start paying more attention to them in shops when I go .............Or do a search myself ........

Don't always trust what you read on the net .........esp if it comes from me hahahaha..........

just did and image search .........I'm torn between reclassification and hybridization

This post has been edited by lucky62: Nov 20 2005, 05:26 PM

LOL LOL

Well something if definitely going on because I know my eyes arn't playing tricks on me. I know it isn't the lighting either. I went to my lfs yesterday looking at a tank full of them ( I wanted to compare the ones they had to the pair I bought) and most had the white tips but there were 3 who had the orange tips. Also there was a bigger lone male a couple tanks down with beautiful orange tips. I think I'll take my camera with me next time I go just to prove I'm not crazy

This post has been edited by Elisabeth83: Nov 20 2005, 05:45 PM

I found this on a site from a breeder "Now 30 something year later I believe what we are seeing in and on the market is a bunch of sub species,who come with a white line on the dorsal fin,or an orange line on the dorsal fin and there's even a yellow line on a dorsal fin. With each of these fish the body color and fins are changed somewhat as to what color they are and how brilliant or drab they can be when in breeding colors and out of breeding colors."

So I guess the ones with orange/yellow are a sub species

i got a pair of blue acara 1 with a white fin and one with an orange. well i HAD a pair the female died about a week ago after succeessfuly breeding 3 times. maybe it could be a hybrid of a golden saum. look extreamly alike. or maybe it is a gold saum.the gold saum being a slight darker, but then again my female blue acara/gold saum was just the same....